


Whole House on Fire

by Thunderhel



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 22:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18270767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thunderhel/pseuds/Thunderhel
Summary: Connor was still staring at him, looking for all the world like he didn’t care if Will came or not. Will knew, logically, that he should just turn around. This thing between them was going to explode one way or another. There was no way Will could hold onto a functioning relationship, let alone one with someone just as confused and angry as he was.“I’m coming.”From Tumblr request: Whiskeydex and instead of Bitty walking in on Whiskey kissing his lax bro he walks in on Whiskey kissing Dex





	Whole House on Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr request: Whiskeydex and instead of Bitty walking in on Whiskey kissing his lax bro he walks in on Whiskey kissing Dex :D for **[Instant-Typo](https://instant-typo.tumblr.com/)**

For what it was worth, Will hadn’t meant for it to happen. 

It might have been over stating things to say he hadn’t meant for _anything_ to happen, exactly. He had chosen Samwell deliberately. Out of his high school friend group he had been the only to go out of state for college, and there had been a very specific reason he had kept close to his chest. The hockey team captained by legend Jack Zimmermann had been a big pull, but there had been a bigger one. 

One in four, maybe more was a heavy tagline that had echoed in his head for weeks as he had tried to pick a school. It had kept him up at night, staring at the ceiling of his bedroom and wondering what it could mean for him. Wondering if it had to mean anything at all. 

In the end, the possibility hadn’t let him make another choice.

That still didn’t mean he had planned on this. 

“Where are you going looking all fancy?” Nursey asked, his head propped up by one hand as he lounged on his bed. There were three textbooks open in front of him and Will knew for a fact he hadn’t looked at a single one in over half an hour. 

“I don’t look fancy,” Will said instead of answering the question. 

“Well, you’re Poindexter fancy,” Nursey amended. “You keep the yellow flannel for special occasions. You can lie, but we both know it’s true.” 

Will had snorted, keeping his back firmly to Nursey as he laced up his boots. “Whatever you say.” He continued to keep his back to Nursey as he grabbed a baseball cap from his collection and pulled it down over his hair, and did his best to ignore the wolf whistle. 

“Oh shit, bringing the big guns to this party!”

“Shut up.” Will liked to think of himself as a tough guy. He prefered the vision of himself he tried to project to be unshakeable and uninterested in the chaos of his friends and teammates. He wanted to be the kind of guy who fixed the Haus and kept his cards close to his chest and was known for eye rolls and common sense. 

The brilliant and horrible shade of red he turned any time anything remotely in the direction of embarrassing happened was a serious wrench in those plans. So were the five regularly scheduled meltdowns he had a week. 

Will kept his shoulders high as he slipped his wallet into his pocket and tried to make it out the door with as much dignity as he could muster. 

“I want deets tomorrow, Poindexter!” Nursey had called after him. “Use protection!” 

Nursey would needle and nag tomorrow, that was a given, but he liked bothering Will more than he cared about getting actual answers. The subject would get dropped just like every other time he tried to ascertain information on Will’s dating life. His privacy, if not his dignity, would be respected in the end, and Will wouldn’t talk about tonight with anyone.

He had never wanted to talk about that sort of thing anyway. What happened between one person and another in private was none of anyone’s business but the parties involved. He had never realized how much harder it was not to talk about it when talking about it wasn’t even an option. Derek Nurse was the most infuriating human being Will had ever met in his life, and he was also tied for Will’s best friend alongside Chowder. He wanted to tell them, wanted to ask for advice no matter how high the cost of the resulting chirps would be. 

He wanted to talk to Bitty, wanted to get some insight into what was going on and have someone point him in the correct direction. Will did best with an instruction manual, he didn’t really like going rogue. 

“Will!” 

Will nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound, swearing as he tripped over his own feet on the sidewalk. It was half past eleven and the courtyard in front of the school store was deserted, only a few silhouettes of other students moving farther up along the path. He would have been lying if he said he hadn’t been keeping an eye out over his shoulder in case someone had followed him from the Haus. 

_Why would anyone be following you? Do you think you’re in a James Bond movie or what?_ Asked a voice in his head that sounded uncomfortably like Holster. 

“Jesus, Connor.” Will needlessly adjusted his hat as he stepped off the path. “Are you trying to fucking kill me.”

Connor Whisk, the only person who could convince him to meet them at this hour with no further explanation, was leaning back against the hard concrete wall behind him. The smile he gave Will was the same as it always was, reserved and hesitant, like he was doing his best to appear as nonchalant as Will wished he could be. He was only marginally better than Will at pretending. “Where’s the fun in that?” He was standing just outside the circle of light cast by the nearest street light, his face thrown into shadows and muting his expression. Last week Will had heard one of the seniors say Connor had a creepy smile, like he was an alien forcing it on, and it had taken everything in Will not to deck him right then and there. Connor’s smiles weren’t easy, but Will couldn’t think of much he wouldn’t give up to see it again. 

Connor was always the more collected of the two. He was awkward and uncomfortable just as often as Will was, but he never exploded in anger. In exchange, he was always tense enough that it had to be painful. Even as he lounged back against the wall, his hoodie pulled up over his head with the sleeves past his wrists, Will could see the hard lines of his shoulders and his arm, holding him unnaturally straight. 

Will reached out before he could think better of it, squeezing his arm gently like he could break that tension through that gesture alone. The movement pulled him close against Connor, and it only felt natural to take his other arm as well, shifting closer until they were nearly pressed against each other in the dark. Connor’s tentative smile shifted into something a little more genuine, but he didn’t relax. 

“You look good,” Will told him. He was proud of how casual his voice sounded. Like he hadn’t been practicing those three words in his head over and over on the walk here, trying to build up the courage to say them out loud. 

Connor tilted his head, his eyebrows raising slightly underneath the curve of his hood. He quickly turned his attention over Will’s shoulder, glancing around to ensure they were alone before he led Will by the wrist a few more feet from the light. 

He didn’t say anything at all as he framed Will’s face between his hands and stretched up to press their mouths together. 

Will really, really hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. 

When he had come to Samwell he had fully intended to explore what he hadn’t been allowed to back in Maine. The interest in other men he had written off for years as platonic appreciation had come to a head his senior year when he and his defense partner had gotten too drunk on shitty beer and gone somewhere they hadn’t been able to come back from. It had been thrilling and terrifying and amazing and even if Jason had sworn the next day he couldn’t remember anything but still wouldn’t look Will in the eye, Will knew he couldn’t ignore himself any longer. 

Samwell had been perfect. 

One in four was such a promising statistic, and even for as awkward and odd looking as Will found himself, it hadn’t let him down. There had been the manager of the roller derby team, who liked to put glitter in his faux hawk and had actually enjoyed listening to Will rant about his coding homework. There had been the guy in his HTML class who couldn’t meet his eye without blushing and tasted like mint every time they kissed. And there had been the point guard down the hall who had been even taller than Will and who he had nothing in common with but had taught him more over the course of a weekend than any of his late night incognito googling ever had. 

It was a small record, not even enough notches to make a full tally on a bedpost, but it was more than Will had ever hoped for. He was still awkward and new to everything, but he wasn’t a virgin. 

Will broke the kiss first, casting a glance to either side to make sure they were still alone before he looked back at Connor. “Hey, about last weekend-”

“Don’t.” 

“Connor-”

Connor pulled his hands back, sliding them into the pocket of his hoodie as he leaned back against the wall, out of Will’s space. “It’s fine.” The soft smile he had a minute ago was gone, replaced by that blank look of disdain and boredom that he had perfected. 

Dex crossed his arms for the lack of a better idea and shifted from foot to foot. This was why he needed Bitty’s advice or Chowder’s encouragement. It was one thing for his awkward and uncomfortable self to find his way in a relationship, it was a whole other ball game when he had to be the one to initiate _talking_ about things. 

“It’s not,” he said as firmly as he could manage through his nerves. “I fucked up,” he continued before Connor could interject. “You...told me something and I didn’t handle it well and I fucked things up and I’m sorry, so thanks for you know, not calling everything off.” 

Connor breathed out hard through his nose, head tilted back and eyes on the sky as he accepted Will’s apology and appreciation in stride. Will could just make out his jaw shift in the darkness. Along the path behind them he heard footsteps, a soft female voice he didn’t recognize was talking and he didn’t look behind him as they passed. Anyone on the sidewalk could easily see there were two people standing in the dark, but as long as they kept a respectable distance from each other he didn’t think anyone would spare them a second glance. 

“I shouldn’t have said anything.” 

Will hadn’t pictured himself here a year ago. Dating a teammate had never been on the table. Even before the Jason incident he knew that would only lead to disaster, and had no intentions of ruining his scholarship in the name of sex or romance or whatever else he wanted to call it. So he had crushes on teammates, fleeting moments of staring too long as Jack helped him move the oven, or focusing too hard on Ransom’s eyes as he explained a chemistry problem to Will for the tenth time in a row, and he knew everyone had trouble forming a coherent thought whenever Bitty bent over to pull something out of the oven. 

He wasn’t nearly the hormonal animal that half of the team was, but he wasn’t dead either. 

But Connor, who he was fairly certain had never properly laughed in his life and probably could sleep standing up for all his tension, had still blind sided him at the final Kegster of the year last season. They had been talking, too far in to call themselves tipsy but not quite far gone enough to say drunk either. Will couldn’t remember the conversation later, but he could remember Connor’s hand around his wrist and his instance that Will let him show him something in the laundry room. 

He couldn’t remember why he had followed, but he remembered the sound the door had made as it had closed behind them. 

“Of course you should have.” Will found his voice rising without him meaning to, and he scowled at the shushing Connor gave him. “That’s something I needed to know.”

Connor rolled his eyes and Will shut his eyes to try to keep down the anger he could feel burning in his blood. It wasn’t necessarily at Connor, he knew. It was at everything and anything that had led either of them to this moment. At whatever made Connor think he should have kept his mouth shut last weekend, and at Will’s absolute panic upon hearing it. 

“It would have been fine,” Connor assured. His tone quite clearly suggested they change the subject. Will didn’t care.

He swallowed hard, glancing around to check again for interlopers before he continued. “It’s not that big of a deal I just...I wasn’t expecting it.”

“It’s fine.”

“I mean, it’s not like I wasn’t before I came here-”

“Please stop.” Connor ran a hand over his face before holding it up between them. “Let’s just...forget about last weekend, okay?” When he met Will’s eyes, Will found himself nodding before he could stop himself. Connor watched his face for a moment, and whatever he found he seemed to approve of as he straightened up, knocking their shoulders together as he moved past him. “Cool. Now let’s go, party started an hour ago.”

“We’re going to a party?” Will caught up to him on the sidewalk, falling into step and letting their arms brush as they walked. It was dark and late and no one would notice. 

“Yeah, Delta Theta, down by King Street.”

Will froze on his next step, but Connor didn’t stop.

“Delta Theta?” Will parroted. 

“That’s what I said,” Connor called over his shoulder, showing no signs of slowing even though he had to have noticed Will’s absence. 

Will only lasted a moment longer before he hurried to catch up. “That is literally the only party Bitty banned everyone from.”

Connor snorted, and though his hood blocked his face from view, Will knew he was rolling his eyes again. “We’re adults and Eric’s not our mom, no matter how much he wants to be.” 

Will felt his shoulders hiking themselves higher as they walked. “Bitty,” he corrected as pointedly as he could, even though he knew it wouldn’t make a difference, “is just trying to be a good captain. Delta Theta is fucked up. They’re always in trouble for hazing or fucking cocaine or some other weird shit. Their parties are always disasters.”

“The Haus has been on fire like six times in the year I’ve been here, I don’t think we have much room to talk.” 

“That’s different-”

Connor sighed, the sound louder than Will expected in the night air. He stopped short with a loud stomp of his shoe as he turned to face Will. “Look. I know Eric had this weird spell over all of you, but he’s not flawless, and he’s definitely not omnipotent. I don’t want to make you do something you don’t want to do. So I’m going to go to this party, and I’m going to have a good time. You can come if you want, or you can go back to the Haus.” His hands were still in his pocket, his chin held high and his eyes cold and Will could feel exhaustion over taking his anger. 

He was truly and almost impressively terrible at relationships. 

The Bitty Argument was one they had had a dozen times already over the last few months of their unnamed relationship. The biggest problem was of course that Will understood. He understood Connor’s hesitancy around Bitty better than just about anyone could. He had the same feelings his freshman year, the distrust and the uncertainty about allowing the hurricane of parental nurturing and seemingly limitless friendliness that was Eric Bittle into his life in any significant way. Bitty was different than anyone Will had ever met, and he knew Connor felt the same way. 

And he was just so _gay_. 

He hadn’t known his freshman year how to explain his issue to anyone. There was no way to explain it without either outing himself or sounding like a bigot, but it had been hard to stomach. Will had spent his entire life with a single understanding of what it meant to be a man, and as everything about that reality began to change, he just hadn’t known what to do with Bitty, or more importantly what to do with himself in that newly forming ideal. He had tried desperately to explain his situation, to Chowder and Ransom and even Nursey. None of them had understood, his explanation too vague and too non-commital to get them anywhere. They had all just assured him, with varying levels of patience, that Bitty belonged here with the rest of them and that he was a better player than anyone could give him credit for.

Shitty had been the only one to come close to understanding that Will wasn’t questioning Bitty’s place on the team, but his own. 

“ _You’ll figure it out, brah_ ,” Shitty had told him one night in the reading room. “ _Not all at once, and some of it you’ll probably realize wasn’t that important to figure out in the first place. But don’t ever forget the team’s got your back. No matter what._ ” 

He hadn’t come out to Shitty, not really, but he had a feeling Shitty knew anyway. 

Not for the first time he wished more than anything that Shitty and Connor had overlapped in their time at Samwell, because if anyone could have gotten through Connor’s thick head it would have been Shitty. Certainly not Will, who could barely hold himself together and couldn’t muster the courage to come out to Bitty of all people. 

Connor was still staring at him, looking for all the world like he didn’t care if Will came or not. Will knew, logically, that he should just turn around. This thing between them was going to explode one way or another. There was no way Will could hold onto a functioning relationship, let alone one with someone just as confused and angry as he was. 

“I’m coming.” 

It wasn’t quite cold enough for him to shiver, the lingering remains of summer still holding on as fall began to creep in. There wasn’t even any wind as they made their way down the street, but the silence stretching between them was freezing. 

Will had never been to Delta Theta house, almost all the way at the end of the street and the farthest reach from the SMH Haus they could get while still being on Samwell property. He knew it when he saw it though, the sagging porch bright with the flashing lights from the windows and drunken college students staggering about. It really didn’t look much different than an SMH Kegster, but Will still felt unease shifting in his stomach. He was going against a direct order from Bitty, and it felt like a betrayal of the highest kind. 

Before his thoughts could spiral much further Connor’s hand was grabbing at his wrist, pulling his arms apart until their fingers were laced together. At the porch, Connor pulled his hood down and looked at Will. He didn’t smile, but the indifference from before was gone. A muscle in his jaw twitched, like he was struggling to talk. Will wasn’t much of a poetry sort of guy, but privately he thought that if he was going to send his life up in flames, at least he’d been lucky enough to have someone so gorgeous light the match. 

Finally Connor looked away, squeezing Will’s hand as he eyed a couple giggling uncontrollably a few feet away. “I’m glad you came.” 

Anything else Will might have had to say to that was lost as Connor pulled him forward, into the mass of intoxicated chaos that the wildest frat party on campus had to offer. 

The rest of the night was a blur, and after a few drinks and the constant feeling of Connor pressed unashamedly up against him for the better part of the night, Will was starting to feel less guilty about breaking the rules. They found themselves at an ungodly hour of the morning in the basement of the crumbling house, and while Will couldn’t remember where he had put his last drink, he found he didn’t really care. Not when Connor was flush against his chest and was letting him put his arms around him like he was. 

The party was a disaster around them, of couples grinding and fighting and slow dancing and partying like it was the end of the world. Will had no idea what song was playing or what the appropriate tempo to move to was, but no one was paying them any attention as what felt like fifteen separate drama plotlines convulged around them. 

“I’m sorry I was an ass,” Connor told him apropos to nothing at all as they crowded themselves against a wall. 

“You weren’t-”

“Yeah I was,” Connor interrupted with a shrug. “I’m just so sick of everyone acting like Bittle’s this like...infallible figurehead. I get that he’s captain now and that’s fine, he’s great at hockey and he deserves it. But he’s not like, captain of our damn lives.” He gripped Will’s flannel then and shook it lightly. “He’s a year older than you, Will! One year! And everyone hero worships him for, what, making pies?” 

Will held in his sigh and tried to keep his face neutral as Connor stared at him, wide eyed and searching. A dozen times they’d had this argument, and Will didn’t want to have it again. Not when he was just a little tipsy and Connor was warm against him and he could smell the shampoo he used.

“I’m sorry about last weekend,” he said, instead of responding to Connor’s anti-Bitty rhetoric. 

Connor released his flannel and groaned. “Will…”

“Please, let me fucking apologize, just one apology and then I’ll fucking stop, but it’s gonna eat me alive if I don’t say this.” 

“Who are you and where’s Poindexter?” The joke was weak even for Connor, his mouth never shifting from his unhappy frown. 

“Yeah, yeah, look.” He paused, glancing around them again. There were people everywhere, but no one was paying them even half a glance. No one in Delta Theta cared about any of the sports teams, let alone hockey. No one had any idea who they were, or would have even cared if they knew. “I’m really sorry for how badly I freaked out. It was not okay, I just...panicked.”

Connor snorted but didn’t move out of Will’s arms. “Clearly.” 

“I know. But I really don’t have a problem with it-”

“Obviously you do-”

“I don’t!” 

Both of them startled at the shout, but despite his raised voice, no one else seemed to notice over the music and general mayhem happening in every direction. 

“I don’t,” Will continued, lowering his voice and leaning down so he could look directly into Connor’s eyes as he continued. “I panicked because I like you, a lot, and I’m obviously really fucking bad at this whole boyfriend thing and I didn’t want to fuck it up and it just felt a lot of added...pressure. And I know that’s stupid, but that’s where we are.”

Connor’s eyes were wide, eyebrows arched high and lips parted as he stared up at Will. “Boyfriend?” He finally asked. The word sounded almost strange when he said it, like a foreign word neither of them quite knew the definition of. 

Will felt his face burning hotter than it already was and resisted the urge to raise his shoulders any higher. “Oh, uh, yeah. I guess. I mean I know we haven’t actually called this anything and if you don’t want to call it that I understand, I just-”

“Do you want to be my boyfriend?”

Will didn’t like the way he asked. It was dripping with incredulity, like Will had just announced he was transferring to Dartmouth to practice ballet instead of hockey. Like it was a ridiculous idea. 

Connor’s hoodie was soft under his fingers, and whatever deodorant he used was getting to Will in a way he hadn’t thought deodorant was capable of doing and his hair was so perfect, a stray piece falling down over his forehead and breaking up one eyebrow. Will was suddenly reminded of his earlier thought. This was going to end badly, no matter what happened. So he might as well be honest. 

With a courage Will had no idea he possessed, he nodded. “Yeah.” 

Connor seemed to freeze in place, going so still beneath Will’s hands that he was worried for a moment he might have broken him. “I mean,” Will continued, unsure how to stop his mouth from moving. “We’ve been texting each other every day for like...five months? And we’ve made out enough times that I think we can consider this more than just friends?”

“Yeah, I know, I just…” Connor had his hands on Will’s back, fingers digging into the fabric hard enough that he knew it was going to wrinkle. Part of him hoped he wouldn’t be able to get them out. For a moment they just stared at each other, completely alone in a sea of drunken buffoonery, and then Connor was kissing him, hard and fierce and more than they had ever done in a public setting. 

Will wrapped his arms tighter around him as he let Connor take control of the kiss, only barely suppressing his moan as their tongues met in a messy and hurried exchange. “You’re the only person who’s ever understood me,” Connor told him, quiet enough that Will was surprised he heard him at all. “I suck at this too, but I want to try.” 

Will nodded, swallowing the dry lump in his throat. Connor said he understood him better than anyone, but Will felt like he barely understood Connor at all. It was a profound and terrifying admission, and Will wanted more than anything to be worthy of it. “I want to understand you more,” he told him, wincing internally at how cheesy an awkward he sounded. Like he was talking about a computer program that confused him and not a human being he had romantic feelings for.

Connor didn’t seem to mind. “I’d like that too.” 

“So I was thinking this weekend we could try again.”

Connor groaned, letting his head tip back in the most dramatic expression Will had ever seen from him. “You’re still on about-”

“You were the one who waited to tell me you were a virgin until our pants were off, now we’re both suffering the consequences.” 

Connor’s head snapped up, eyes darting all around them to make sure no one had heard. “Don’t just announce that!”

“I was quiet!”

Connor turned back to him, his voice a furious whisper that might have been lost in the crowd if his tone wasn’t so distressed. “And when was I supposed to tell you? When’s the correct time to spring that on someone?”

“Literally any time before your pants are off. But,” Will stopped him before the argument could continue, gripping Connor tight to hold him close, “it doesn’t matter because we have this weekend. I mean, if you want, of course. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want-”

“My roommate’s going to be back this weekend, we don’t have anywhere to go,” Connor interrupted before Will could dig himself any deeper. 

The heat was back in his face, but Will had come too far to back down now. “I was actually thinking we could go somewhere else this weekend.” 

Connor tilted his head in question, but didn’t speak.

Saying things out loud was always so much easier in theory than in actual practice. “Like, there’s this spot that I’ve been a couple of times,” Will finally managed to say. He struggled for a moment to meet Connor’s eye but couldn’t work up the courage. How did people discuss things like this on a daily basis? “It’s a little less than an hour out of Samwell, and it’s on State game lands but the rangers don’t patrol it very often. People park out there a lot of nights to look at the stars. I don’t know, it’s really nice out there? I’d like to show it to you.” 

Connor was staring at him again, and once more Will couldn’t quite process the fact that there were other people around them. That they weren’t actually alone in their own world. “You want to have sex in a state park?” 

Will couldn’t help but laugh, and awkward bark of a sound that left him before he could stop it. His face was burning, but it was too late to turn back or consider how ridiculous he probably looked. “Well, sort of. I mean...there’s a lot of room in Jeep when I put the back seats down, so I thought…” He couldn’t finish the thought, ending with a shrug instead of anything resembling commitment as his embarrassment at the awkward proposition finally got the best of him.

Connor’s face was blank again for minute, and Will wasn’t sure if the red on his face was really a blush or if it was just the light playing off of his skin. Slowly, like Connor wasn’t sure what he was doing either, that blank expression began to melt into something softer, the beginnings of a smile brightening his face as he looked at Will with something that made his lungs feel heavy. 

“Who knew you’d be a romantic. Wanting to fuck under the stars.”

Will ducked his head when the heat in his face became too much to keep eye contact. His smile was hopeless and unstoppable. “I’m full of surprises. I’ll even bring wine. Full on blow you away.” Will realized the double entendre in his sentence after he said it, and had it been anyone but Connor he thought they would have laughed at him for it. But it was Connor, who was possibly on even more uncertain ground than he was. 

“A master of seduction.” Connor told him, unable to keep his face straight. His tentative smile was broadening into a full grin. “You gonna serenade me too?”

“I can borrow my old roommate’s guitar, but fair warning: I don’t know how to play it, and my singing has made dogs start howling.”

Connor’s laugh was every bit as contained and restrained as he was, and Will thought it was the greatest thing he’d ever heard. “Oh man, I’m officially demanding you sing for me and play the guitar. This whole thing is off unless you play me a song.”

Will laughed along with him, leaning forward until their noses were brushing. “Deal.” 

Connor was an excellent kisser. Will took ten minutes to work up the courage to tell Connor he looked good, so he knew there was no way he would be able to tell him that out loud. The best he could do was run his fingers through his hair and deepen the kiss, and hope Connor thought the same of him. The short hairs from where he had shaved the sides of his head were under Will’s palms, and he could always feel the phantom of the touch for hours after they parted. Their height difference wasn’t much, Connor was just under six foot and Will only a little over but those few inches seemed to important everytime Connor had to stretch to meet him part way, and Will felt something needlessly and fiercely protective stir inside himself with how well Connor fit against him. It was embarrassing really, how far gone he was for a boy he only kissed in secret on the weekends. 

He knew Connor wasn’t ready for much more. He wasn’t ready for much more. But maybe together they could try. Maybe if the two of them relied on each other they could figure out how to be an actual couple instead of whatever it was they were doing and be boyfriends in something other than whispered exchanges. 

Will kept his eyes closed for a second after they parted, breathing out as much of his anxiety as he could before he opened them. “Connor-” And immediately cut himself off.

Connor had gone stock still in his arms, eyes wide and hyper focused somewhere over Will’s shoulder. “Fuck,” he hissed, dropping his arms from Will like they were on fire and flipping his hood back up.

Will tried to follow his line of sight but all he saw was the swarm of bodies and faces he didn’t know. “What?”

“Fucking Bitty’s here. He saw us.” 

“What?!” 

Connor didn’t swear much, not nearly a fraction of what the rest of the team did, but now he couldn’t seem to stop. Will didn’t know many words in Spanish, but there were a few that even he could recognize before Connor was jumping another step back. “Fuck!”

“Connor, wait!” Will still couldn’t see Bitty, and part of him couldn’t quite believe he was actually here. Maybe Connor was just paranoid. 

He had one hand still on Connor’s arm when someone by the steps stumbled, and Will saw him. A shock of blonde hair that somehow stood out among the sea of debauchery, and those big doe eyes looking nowhere near as angry as Will thought they should have. 

Panic made his tongue too heavy in his mouth and his legs itch to run, to bolt just like Connor was trying to and find a safe location before he had a full on breakdown. He was supposed to be the rational one, he was supposed to be the sense of reason between him and Connor, but he had never been great at either of those things when he was faced with his own anxiety, and Connor broke his grip easily and was gone in the next second, disappearing into the crowd before Will could find his feet underneath of him. 

The pleasant buzz that had been running through his veins had him nowhere near drunk enough to justify the way the room was spinning and how hard his heart was hammering in his chest. 

Will had considered, countless times over the past two years, coming out to Bitty. He had even tried on more than one occasion, practiced the speech in his head for hours before showing up at the Haus. Every time he had tried he had felt the words lodge in his throat and refuse to cooperate, and every time he had chickened out. The idea of confessing that not only was he attracted to men but he was also involved with another closeted teammate was so ridiculous that he hadn’t even considered it. 

He probably should have given it more thought. 

He lost Bitty in the crowd, but far more concerning was the fact that he had lost Connor as well. Everyone around him was a stranger, and no one gave him a second glance as he frantically made his way back through the house. Part of him wanted to call out, to yell his name in the crowd like Connor was a lost dog on the street, but that would have been a fruitless endeavor between the music and Connor’s desire not to be found. The entire point of coming here had been to not be noticed, and while that plan had been unceremoniously taken out back and shot, he didn’t think Connor would appreciate his continued beating of it. 

He could deal with Bitty and the consequences of that later, but right now he had to get to Connor. 

Navigating his way back outside proved more difficult than he had originally assumed. There were too many people in too small of a space, and he couldn’t quite remember which direction he had come from. When he finally stumbled onto the porch, he slammed straight into someone blocking the steps. 

“Fuck, sorry.”

“No worries- wait, Dex?”

Will blinked, adjusting to the darkness of the outside world, but everything just kept spinning faster as he realized it was Bully holding his arm steady, with Louis and Hops right behind him. All three of them were looking at him with matching expressions of confusion and nerves, and Will couldn’t process any of it. What were they doing here? How much did they know? 

“Where’s Bitty?” He asked instead. 

“He went after Whiskey,” Louis told him, pointing out into the darkness.

“What are you doing here?”

“Did you come here with Whiskey?” 

Will ignored all three of them, taking the steps two at at time as he bolted off in the direction that Louis had pointed. It was a big campus, but if everything was happening half as fast as he felt it was then they couldn’t have gotten far. 

He had only just turned the corner when he almost ran into his second teammate of the night.

“Dex!” 

“Bitty.” 

When Will had first met Bitty, he never would have picked him as captain material. He had been all smiles and gifts and over eager friendliness and nothing like any hockey player Will had ever met in his life. He had, of course, made the mistake of confusing friendliness for weakness, and had quickly learned his lesson as he had gotten to know Bitty. Bitty was tough exactly where he needed to be, and never a step over that line. He knew exactly what the team needed and how to get them there, and sometimes that meant drills that made him wish he had voted for someone else, and sometimes it meant bringing players cookies to their dorms and discussing plays and private lives in secret. Bitty had a way of working himself into people’s hearts before they knew what was happening, and also of being one of the fiercest leaders Will had ever known.

The Bitty staring up at him with wide eyes with his mouth in a firm line looked nothing like his captain. 

Will couldn’t read his expression, and couldn’t begin to put together what he was thinking. 

“I’m sorry,” Will finally blurted out, unable to handle the look Bitty was leveling him with. 

The exclamation seemed to surprise him, his eyebrows arching and mouth parting as he continued to stare wordlessly at Will. 

Will swallowed hard, tasting something bitter on his tongue. When he couldn’t stand to meet Bitty’s eye any longer he turned his attention to the cracking concrete beneath his feet. “We...I know you said we weren’t supposed to be there, and I don’t...there’s no excuse. It was really stupid and I’m sorry.”

He was half a foot taller than Bitty, but he had never felt smaller in his life as he listened to him take a steadying breath in and out. “Right. I’m…” 

Will chanced a glance back up as Bitty trailed off. He had one hand on his hip, but the other was pressed over his mouth, eyes darting up and down the street like it could help him make sense of what was happening. There was still no expression on his face and Will felt like he was going down a set of rapids, slamming against the rocks with nothing to grab onto. He had the chance to ask Bitty for help, for guidance on this incredibly ill advised path, but he’d been too scared and now he was going to drown for it. 

“I’m sorry.” Will’s voice was barely above a whisper. Down the street he could still hear the party raging on, and somewhere out in the distance he could hear the rumble of cars, but none turned onto their street. “I meant to tell you-” His mouth was still open, the next word trying desperately to form itself and to explain to Bitty everything. To make him understand that it wasn’t that he didn’t trust him or that he didn’t consider them good friends. But the words wouldn’t come and Bitty was still staring at him and he felt the shame of the situation coiling hot and horrible under his skin. “I’m sorry.” He couldn’t remember ever apologizing so much in his life. 

Bitty’s hands were on his hips again, but instead of looking intimidating, he just looked lost. “It’s...You don’t have to tell me anything,” he assured Will. “That’s your business. Not mine.” His words were sincere, and Will knew he was trying to be as supportive as he could given the unusualness of the encounter. But Bitty had never been a great actor, and Will had to look away at the hurt he could see as clear as day on Bitty’s face. 

“I...I know there’s a lot we have to talk about, but...Bitty, I have to find Connor.” He wanted to explain further, wanted to tell him that he cared about Connor, that this wasn’t just a questionable hookup. He wanted to tell him that Connor’s problems with himself ran deep and Will could calm him down if he could just find him. But just like before, the words were stuck. 

Bitty nodded, shoulders slumping and if Will didn’t know better he might have said he looked relieved. “Right. Yes.” He turned pointing down George Street. “He headed that way, I think he’s going back to his dorm. I didn’t think me chasing after him was a great idea.” 

Will nodded, ducking his head as he headed past Bitty. 

“Will.” Bitty reached out a hand, grabbing him by the arm and holding him still. Will couldn’t remember the last time Bitty had called him Will. William, sometimes, when he was telling him to knock something off or chiding him for a chirp. Never Will. When he looked down at Bitty, he thought he looked sad. “It’s going to be alright. No matter what happens, I’ve got your back. Both of yours. And I’m not going to tell anybody anything that’s none of their business. Make sure he knows that.” 

Will nodded, and Bitty squeezed his arm. 

“And make sure you know it too.” 

There was a horrible pressure building in his face, and for a second Will thought he might have been getting sick before he realized the much more horrifying truth. With his free hand he rubbed at his face as discreetly as he could with Bitty’s eyes still on him and nodded, not brave enough to try to speak. 

Bitty let go of his arm and Will told himself it didn’t feel like a loss. He and Bitty could talk later, and maybe he could get himself together enough in the meantime to say what he needed to. 

But Bitty could wait, because right now Connor needed him and this time there wasn’t room for mistakes. 

If he was going to make this work then he had to start with this right now and he was determined, for once in his life, to not mess up a good thing.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this over the course of two nights. I might continue it but I probably will not.  
>  **  
> **  
> [Tumblr](http://dexondefense.tumblr.com/)  
> 


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